I am a prison chaplain, which requires me to supervise a large variety of
religious groups' services. A particular brand of numerology is common in
many religious systems, in the sense that numeric values are applied to
concepts, then dates or events are analyzed numerically to see their
significance. For instance, the digits of the date of some event are added
together, then those digits added together, finally arriving at a smaller
number that in their system means power, or themselves, or something like
that, thereby "proving" the divine nature of the event. I hasten to make
the distinction between this and the legitimate use of language conventions
with which we understand 40 in ancient literature connoting "a lot of"
something, like Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, or "it rained for 40 days and
40 nights", or three often having divine significance in Christianity.

Numbers are also often used by gangs (on the street or in prison) to
symbolize certain messages they want to covertly transmit. This almost
always uses a=1, b=2, etc. A common symbol in prison gangsterism (by
skinhead types) is 88, which translates to HH, shorthand for Heil Hitler.

I have used the following to demonstrate how you can use such arithmancy to
prove about anything, such as the musicians Little Richie and Stevie Wonder
really being white supremacists (which raises a lot of eyebrows when I
announce that): They both play the piano, which has 88 keys, 88 = HH = Heil
Hitler = white supremacist code language. In addition, there are more white
keys than black keys on the piano, AND the white keys are larger than the
black keys. This draws the ire of a few, but most at least register the
truth of the example.

An example of bibliomancy in literature would be Wilkie Collins's novel
"The Moonstone". One of the characters in that book considers "Robinson
Crusoe" to be the perfect guide to life, often selecting passages at
random to guide his actions.

From: Stephanie Rousseau (stephanier AT rlns.com)
Subject: Bibliomancy...or should it be Quotemancy?

I enthusiastically greet each morning's AWAD-- I'm always enlightened by
the encounter, never left wanting. It's almost like having an electronic cat!

Even more than the daily word, I enjoy the daily quotation at the bottom.
Often, these quotations are eerily more appropriate to my current struggles
than any daily horoscope. I am embarrassed to admit the quotations you choose
often influence my decisions, providing me with the justification I need
when I lack the confidence to award it to myself. Would this be "quotemancy"?

Case in point: I've made the decision to give up my lucrative job and return
to college so I can achieve my lifelong dream of a college diploma. As my
last day at work loomed closer, I was anxiously wondering if I made the
right decision. Today's quotation from Carl Jung: "There is no coming to
consciousness without pain." When I clicked on the "Random AWAD" link from
today's edition, I got Henry David Thoreau's: "The mass of men lead lives
of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."

I interpreted this to mean that enlightenment through education will have
its challenges, but shrinking from challenge leads to a life half lived.
Quotemancy, once again, points to a decision well made. Here's to my coming
to consciousness and releasing my song!

Also known as Bible-cracking in the vernacular. Those who believe the
Protestant Bible has divination powers use it to determine a course of
action by letting the pages fall open, then with eyes closed putting a
finger on a page. With a little interpretation on the part of the cracker,
the verse so chosen will divine the way.

A successful businessman suddenly found his business going down the drain.
Contemplating suicide, he went to his minister for advice.

The minister says "Take a beach chair and a Bible and put them in your car
and drive down to the edge of the ocean. Go to the water's edge. Take the
beach chair out of the car, sit on it, take the Bible out, and open it up.
The wind will riffle the pages for awhile and eventually the Bible will stay
open at a particular page. Read the first words on the page and they will
tell you what to do."

The man did as he was told. Three months later the man and his family came
back to see the minister. They appeared prosperous and beaming.

The man handed the minister a thick envelope full of money as a donation to
the shul, in gratitude for his advice. Naturally he asked, "Just what were
the first words on that page?"

The man replied: "Chapter 11".

(Chapter 11 is a section of the Bankruptcy Code under the US law which
provides for the reorganization.)

From: Fred Donehoo (fj AT strato.net)
Subject: Bibliomancy

My favorite story regarding bibliomancy is an old "chestnut" that circulates
among fundamentalists about the man who treated the Bible as an irrational
fetish rather than a rational guideline.

Eyes closed, he opened the scriptures, put his finger on a verse, and read,
"Judas went and hanged himself."

Seeking clarification, he tried again and his finger pointed to, "Go thou
and do likewise."

He was totally undone when his third try gave him, "What thou doest, do
quickly!"

Visit a nearby library. Pick a book at random and drop it. Look at a word on
the page where it fell open. If you don't like the word, pick another book
and repeat the process ad infinitum or until you have finally found a
satisfactory result. While unobtrusively slinking out of the library before
police arrive, try to remember as many of the words you had encountered as
possible. And bear in mind: there is no coming to consciousness without pain.

On seeing this word today, the first thought that came to my mind was a
picture of "Asterix and the Soothsayer" where the soothsayer pretends to
predict the future by reading the entrails of animals leading to comical
situations.

We could tell the future in a much nicer way by practicing vegetarian
haruspicy. The lines in a cross-section of broccoli certainly tell us
something about our fate, if only we could interpret them correctly. The
arrangement of seeds in a tomato, the number of furrows in a walnut
meat, or the hue of an eggplant may well hold the key to our destiny.

Every day I attach a word- and quite frequently the quotation-of-the-day to
our daily briefing materials for my wildland fire crew. After we are informed
of the daily weather and national situation and safety message, we expand
our minds just a little bit of thanks to your daily AWAD emails.